Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Well not really drinks. I'm sure our SARA authors have been nipping at a glass or two or perhaps, three. (Moscato, anyone?)But life kind of imploded for me and for other members of the blog. I have to thank Emmeline Lock for keeping us going with those Reading Adventures! Also I'd like to thank our two regular bloggers, Carla Caruso and Khloe Wren who are leaving the blogging team (I will not cry, I will not cry). We'll still bring you their news but they are off being busy little bees.Now we've got a Bumper Romping Issueof SARA News today, so get your cuppa or a cuppa filled with some wine and read on...

Carla is wearing a new hat- editor in chief. Well, technically co-editor in chief as she has become the co-editor of Romance Writers of Australia's monthly journal, Hearts Talk.

Better late than never-
Carla appeared in the Sunday Mailin June... with model in tow!

Pre-order Carla's new book!

If you love amateur sleuths, from TV shows Devious Maids (where a Latina maid goes undercover) to Castle (about a crime-solving mystery novelist in the vein of Murder, She Wrote), then you might just like Carla's new one, A Pretty Mess: An Astonvale Novel # 1(HarperCollins/Harper Impulse)

The first in a series, it’s set in the fictional well-heeled South Australian suburb of Astonvale, known for its infinity-edge pools and Wimbledon-worthy tennis courts (inspired by Adelaide’s real inner south, including Unley Park and Springfield!)

The second book also takes the characters on holiday to Robe, dubbed “The Hamptons of South Australia”.

The series follows a neat-freak professional organiser – Celeste Pretty – who gets caught up in messy mysteries with a sexy builder (Lenny Muscat)!

From Carla:
Some of it’s a little inspired by my own experience. I’ve moved to the inner south from the far south – Seaview Downs – went to a public school, live in a renovator’s delight, and until recently drove a fourteen-year-old Holden Astra, like Celeste. So it provides that outsider’s perspective while still displaying a fondness for the area.

Blurb:

Sometimes, to come clean, you've got to get your hands dirty ... Celeste Pretty, a self-confessed neat freak, has found the job she was born to do: a professional organiser, de-cluttering people's homes and workplaces. Her new business gets off to a cracking start when she lands her first client, health and fitness guru Natalia Samphire, in the well-heeled suburb of Astonvale. But things get messy at Natalia's mansion when Celeste finds a blackmail note and other mysterious items. And then there's Lenny Muscat, the sexy builder renovating the place, whose constant presence is muddling Celeste's usually organised brain. When things get decidedly suspicious at the mansion, she and Lenny have to team up to investigate. But will Celeste emerge with her heart and professional reputation unscathed? This is the first in the Astonvale series.

Isn't Pattington a star?!!. Of course, our Suzie is as well but you can't pat her on the head and go 'good girl'. Or can you?

Short story selected!

Run from the Sun has been selected for for inclusion in the romance collection ‘By My Side’ from publisher Alfie Dog Fiction. The collection brings together some of the best short stories from 20 authors across the globe.

The collection is available for download for about $4.00 and can be bought direct through Alfiedog or other online retailers.

Peta loves her life in the desert and wants her fiancée Alex to experience her love and passion. As a photographer, he loves the colour and diversity of life, but an encounter with a snake leaves not only his life in the balance, but their future. - See more at AlfieDog

More promo for Suzie as she finds herself in the Mount Barker Courier.

Khloe has been a busy busy author with four books in her best selling Dragon Warriors series hitting the an e-reader near you!

Out now from Evernight Publishing are these smoking hot menage reads!

Book 1: Enchanting Eilagh - Dimitri, Max & Eilagh

Eilagh and her four best friends escape their jobs and lives for a few days to go camping. Fate intervenes and they get whipped away through a portal to The Land of Feury while hiking.

The Land of Feury has a problem. A virus killed off all their females years ago and Dimitri, their leader, has no idea how to solve the issue. When Dimitri’s twin, Max, finds a group of five unconscious females he can only hope of what might happen. When Dimitri and Max realize one of the females, Eilagh, is their Desired they are overjoyed.

But there is trouble brewing, and an uprising against Dimitri causes two of the women to be kidnapped. Will they be able to rescue their Desired and her friend in time? Will these five females prove to be the saviors their race has been praying for?

The Land of Feury has a problem. A virus killed off all their females years ago and a solution is yet to be found. When a group of five unconscious females are found, hope for survival amongst the Dragon Shifters runs high.

Becky and her four best friends are escaping from their stressful everyday lives to go camping in the bush. Fate intervenes and while they are hiking they get whipped away through a portal to The Land of Feury.

Brothers, Drake and Savren, discover one of the females is their Desired. They excitedly set about wooing the strong willed, independent Becky. Their plans do not go smoothly, Becky is kidnapped by rebels and taken from them. Will they be able to rescue their Desired in time? Will they be able to convince the ever independent Becky that having bonded mates is a good thing?

When Carina goes camping with her friends she's hoping her friends can help her heal from the horrific attack she suffered ten months ago. The day after she confesses all to her friends around a
campfire, all five of them are blown through a portal to The Land of Feury.

Dragon shifters call The Land of Feury home. Brothers, Denver, Phelan and Hart, the clan's farmers, are excited when they discover Carina is their Desired; their destined mate. But can they help her
heal from her from her past hurts? Will Carina ever be able to accept the attention of three men after being attacked?

Only three of Skye’s four friends have woken up after they were transported through a portal to the Land of Feury, leaving the traumatized Carina still unconscious. Skye vows to not leave Carina’s side until she has recovered... no matter how irresistible her three sexy guards are.

Dragon Warriors, Calix, Owen and Axel are excited to discover one of the five human females the Great Wind delivered to their land is their Desired, their one and only destined love. Their only problem is getting her alone long enough to seduce her.

Clan healers, Baxter and Zane have their work cut out for them when five human women appear in the Land of Feury. Instantly they recognize one of the women as their Desired, but with the other four women continually getting injured they struggle to find the time to convince Binda she’s precious to them.

Binda battles to find her place in Feury as her friends all find love with their Dragon Warriors. Convinced she doesn’t belong on Feury she sets about finding a way back to Earth. But when she
attempts to leave, things don’t go as she planned.

Virginia has been offered a contract for two more historical romances by Kesington's Lyrical Press. They are titled Ella and Charlotte.

Great review for latest release

A 5 star review for Losing Patients from Long and Short Reviews!

"It was amazing to watch how the relationship between Bree and Sam developed. From jilted lovers to friends with a lot of unresolved sexual tension between them, to utterly in love with each other – all written in a way that made it natural, believable and a delight to follow. Their relationship progressed smoothly and at a pace that made it possible to watch them develop deep feelings for each other, without it being too drawn-out."

Claire's latest release, Down Among the Dead Men, is out now from Entangled Ignite.

Caitlyn needs to find her estranged father or her mother will be thrown out of the home she loves, so Caitlyn ventures into the rough, tough world of the Australian opal fields. After rescuing a teenager from an attempted assault she learns that the girl, Max, is her half-sister.
Their father is missing and suspected of stealing opals – an activity that could place both Max and Caitlyn in danger. Attempting to locate their father without alerting the police, Caitlyn enlists the help of Dale, a city lawyer turned lapidary, hiding out in the town to protect his
daughter from death threats. Together they investigate, but progress is slow until Caitlyn stumbles upon a link between her father and organised crime, and into an investigation by the Federal Police.

After offering herself as the go-between in a ‘sting’, Caitlyn realises that she’s put Dale’s life at risk and in order to save him, she does the one thing she’s sworn never to do. She battles crippling claustrophobia to descend into the darkness of an underground opal mine where her father’s dead body is lying. With the criminals either arrested or dead, Caitlyn accepts that she’s found more than she went looking for. She’s fallen in love with Dale, but there’s no way he’d consider moving back to the city, not when a move would expose his daughter to danger. He doesn’t ask her to stay so she makes a new life for herself and her sister in Adelaide...until the death of the man threatening his family allows Dale to confess his
feelings for her.

Blood Oath, Book Two in The Seeker Chroniclesis out now with Rogue Phoenix Press.

We discover more about the Rogue, Seeker world in Australia. This is the story of Cassie and Matt, based in Tasmania. Matt kills a rogue vampire who wanted Cassie. This sets up a course of events where the rogue’s twin has sworn in a blood oath to avenge his brother’s death. Throw in a bunch of vampire hunters as well and you have trouble. Things become even more complicated when Cassie’s sister is kidnapped as bait. The only option may be that Cassie will have to give up her own life to save them all.

"This well-written novel has a solid plot, smooth pace, plenty of emotion and depth, and all the elements needed for a great novel. The characters are engaging, the chemistry between Cara and Seth sizzling, and the sex scenes scorching hot. This paranormal romance is a definite page-turner, not to be missed!"

Maggie starts of a new series - The Midworlder Trilogy with Unknown Protector - due for release October 1st from Soul Mate Publishing.

Angels and demons are not what you think , and neither will be able to save Nicole from a painful death. She will have to rely on her own skills as an ex cop turned detective, and those of a handsome rogue called Ridge. He may have wings but he's no angel.

Assassin Clemency is on a mission to find the Herz des Mondes, a moonstone of great and mysterious power, which will help her get her life on track. When she is out-thieved by the appealing mercenary L'Arc, is she beaten, or will they both reap the stone's rewards of the heart?

Sucking face...or so that's what the book should be called from the US cover.

Anne has a new release this month from HM&B with The Party Dare.

When beauty therapist Breanna Black encounters the sexy new owner of the house next door, she's attracted, but she's more concerned his intended renovations will impact on her heritage home. His curt manner when she questions him doesn't disguise the hot desire she sees beneath his cool demeanour.

A confident flirt, when Brie next sees Leo Hamilton, she all but dares him to attend her party.

With his environmental management business, Leo's too busy to be attracted to the stunning, flirtatious Breanna. But he loves a challenge and can't resist, just for a little while...

A Price Worth Paying was a finalist in the Short Sexy category in Romance Writers of Australia's Ruby Awards held in Sydney in August.

Gorgeous cover love...

Stone Castles is coming out 25 November by Pan MacMillan Australia

Out this month!

Trish's Tycoon's Temptationis part of a continuity series called The Chatsfield from HM&B.

When the black sheep doesn't get his way!

Franco Chatsfield never lived by his family's rules, and he isn't going to start now. But The Chatsfield's new CEO needs Franco to secure a partnership, and he can't say no. He'll seal the deal and leave. But one woman stands in his way….

Holly Purman has devoted her life to her family's vineyard, and she won't risk it all for a Chatsfield, so she'll give Franco six weeks to prove himself. But working together sends their senses reeling, and when one taste isn't enough, they quickly discover the price of temptation!

Seventeen-year-old Kath McKenny has a date to the end-of-term party with her since-forever crush. He publicly messaged her to confirm, but there’s been a recent status update: he’s taking the new girl — giggly, pretty, well-developed Lana Elliot — instead.

After being thoroughly humiliated in front of half the school, best friend Chay talks Kath into revenge: a scheme to create the perfect — and very fake — online guy for Lana. Once she falls for him, they’ll show her what it’s like to get brutally dumped.

Everything is going to plan until Kath starts spending more-than-just-friends time with the other new kid in town — Lana’s dreamy older brother, Sebastian. Kath finds herself getting in deep — in love and drowning in guilt, she tries to put an end to her prank, but it’s taken on an unstoppable momentum of its own, with very real consequences.

As her plotting begins to unravel, so do the people Kath thought she knew:
Her mother has a secret online life.
Her father has a whole new family.
Her best friend is barely recognisable.
Her boyfriend has a disturbing hidden past.
And her enemy is more familiar than she knew

Asher is a Lifer, a slave aboard the spaceship Pelican. A member of the lowest rung of society, she must serve the ship’s Officials and Astronauts as punishment for her grandparents’ crimes back on Earth. The one thing that made life bearable was her illicit relationship with Samuai, a Fishie boy, but he died alongside her brother in a freak training accident.

Still grieving for the loss of her loved ones, Asher is summoned to the upper levels to wait on Lady, the head Official’s wife and Samuai’s mother. It is the perfect opportunity to gather intel for the Lifer’s brewing rebellion. There’s just one problem—the last girl who went to the upper levels never came back.

On the other side of the universe, an alien attack has left Earth in shambles and a group called The Company has taken control. Blank wakes up in a pond completely naked and with no memory, not even his real name. So when a hot girl named Megs invites him to a black-market gaming warehouse where winning means information, he doesn’t think twice about playing. But sometimes the past is better left buried.

As Asher and Blank’s worlds collide, the truth comes out—everyone has been lied to. Bourne Identity meets Under the Never Sky in this intergalactic tale of love and deception from debut novelist Beck Nicholas.

Victoria's Nobody But Him is free this month on iTunes thanks to Harlequin Australia.

And coming November 25th

Our Kind of Love is the third in Victoria's Middle Point series from Harlequin Australia.

The best thing to happen to her… or her biggest mistake?

Anna is… unexpected… unbelievable… unstoppable. And unavailable.

Will what happened in Middle Point stay there?

Dr Anna Morelli rarely makes mistakes. But this one is big, bordering on huge. Somewhere between sunset and sunrise at the simple beachside wedding of two old friends, she’s cried in the ladies bathroom, danced to too many ABBA songs and survived the best, knock-your-socks-off one night stand in recorded history. Has she gone crazy? She’s supposed to be running from the disasters in her life, not creating more.

Award-winning journalist Joe Blake is back in Middle Point to lick his wounds after being dumped by his wife and sacked from his Sydney job on the same day. But after one incredible night with Anna, he finds he’ll need all his investigative skills to figure out why she won’t give in to their sizzling chemistry….

Bronwyn's first book with Harlequin Australia, The Road to Ruin comes out in December!

When the most desperate of times calls for the most scandalous of measures.

James Trelissick, Marquis of Lasterton, has but one plan: to get his sister and mother back from the notorious pirate who stole them from their ship bound for the Americas, without creating the scandal of the season. After months of fruitless searching, his family name and his sister’s reputation hang dangerously by a single thread. So, taking matters into his own hands, he kidnaps the one woman who must hold some of the answers: the daughter of the pirate captain.

Daniella Germaine’s only wish is to be reinstated to the decks of her father’s pirate ship. She will do whatever it takes to regain his attention after he decides she needs to be a real lady and ships her off to London to find a husband. With disgrace her last option, she tries everything she can think of to scandalise: riding at breakneck speed through the park to win a gentleman’s wager and swimming naked in the moonlight. It’s during another of these deeds of daring that her plans fall to pieces and her future lands in the hands of a man with not a lot left to lose…

Somewhere along the road to ruin, when lives are at stake and hearts are torn, Daniella and James must each decide between what they want, and what they actually need, to really live…

A feisty, sexy historical novel of daring, lust, and finding love in the most unlikely places.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Hello, loyal SARA followers, and welcome to September's instalment of the very adventurous...

Reading Adventures!

(To be honest, authoring is a very solitary and sometimes, ahem, boring pursuit, so if we use words like ADVENTURE and FUN and SPARKLY and WINE (often those last two together) it makes it sound like a party in here.)(Which, of course, it totally is.)

While Virginia Taylor has been partying solidly like a rockstar since the recent release of her books Dr No Commitment, and Losing Patients, she has found time (obviously, she doesn't sleep, just like all rockstars) to give us this review gem:

Untamed, by Anna Cowan

Rated with five stars from me.

I’m not going to
tell the story of Untamed because that’s not what I do. I read for the whole
experience, the prose, the characters,
and the stories. Often I don’t buy a book because the story told by the
reviewer isn’t one I might be interested in, whereas if reviewer simply gave
the impression of the story and why she liked/disliked it, I would look for
myself.

As it happens, a
five star review did interest me enough to go to Amazon and look. I always read
the first couple of pages online. I saw some fairly ordinary editing and that
Untamed was ranked at about 700,000 by Amazon. At that stage, I didn’t
understand the Amazon author rankings or how many books a writer needed to sell
to suddenly get a good ranking, which had been happening to me. So, with
selfish experimentation in mind I bought the book. At 700,000 I could assume
that I would probably be the only buyer in a 24 hour period. In case anyone is
interested, the sale dropped her to about 200,000 and I didn’t start reading
right away because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to read too much.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Somewhere in the
middle of the first chapter I read a sentence that made my heart sing. The
prose was simply stunning. Of course I read on and was not only lost in some
beautiful words -which I can’t show you
- because my Kindle won’t let me get back into the story unless I go backwards
page by page from the end to the beginning and I don’t have time.

So, trust me. Anna Cowan is a fantastic
writer.

One reviewer
said ‘you either like this book or you hate it.’ This means the story is
powerful. Other reviewers thought the story was about a boyish girl and girlish
boy finding a strange connection that they didn’t want to know about.

I’m a Dorothy
Dunnett fan and so I don’t see interesting characterisations quite so simply.
This is a story about two damaged people who deal with their problems in their
own way, and each needs the strengths of the other. This is what romance is
about. Love, redemption, happy endings, and finding the ‘one.’

The heroine
isn’t a boyish girl - she is a strong, caring woman, and easily the best
heroine I’ve read for a very long time. The hero isn’t a girly boy. He was a
renaissance man, that is, a man who has exceptional talents. Not only women
fall in love with him, but men. If you can understand that a woman who is just
as brilliant but not quite as beautiful can love him, which of course you can,
you will love the book as much as I did. It’s a thrilling, clever story, and
wonderfully written.

And not only is
the heroine one of the best ever heroines I have read in a romance, the ending
of the story is my nomination for the most exciting, wonderful ending in any
romance, ever. It’s a keeper.

Thanks, Virginia. We do love your reviews.

And here's some further gold from Maggie Mundy, who has been going crazy and celebrating like a Eurovision finalist, because the first book of her Midworlder Trilogy, Unknown Protector, is out THIS WEEK from Soul Mate Publishing.

To be honest, Maggie, that cover makes me feel a little like swinging from a chandelier, too. Cover win!

Lick, by Kylie Scott

This is a quick read by the very popular author. It is based around a rock star romance that is a very popular genre at the moment. The heroine Ev in this story finds herself recovering from a hangover to discover she has married a rock star. It is the story of a relationship between the two that is on again, off again. The other band members cause problems as do old girlfriends. I did feel that it had a feel of a Twilight for rock stars about it. There is lots of sex in it that you don’t find in Twilight. The rest of the band will all get their own book as well. I would say that it was a young adult audience that it would appeal to. I received it as a free book at the roadshow.

Enforcers Craving, by DJ Michaels

This is a menage romance and I have to say the first one that I have read. It is a ScFi romance that has everything from spaceships to dragons in it. A group of girls get taken to another world where there is little technology. They are dressed in clothes that would resemble the Edwardian era. There is no way back to Earth so the girls will have to make the best of their lot. In this book Chelsea is rescued by two sexy dragon riders called Tarkin and Ari. She will find a new home, love and some great sex. The atmosphere of the book reminded me of Firefly by Joss Whedon. I think I would definitely be persuaded to read menage again.